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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Review: Angels' Blood by Nalini Singh

Genre: Fantasy/ParanormalPublisher: Gollancz, 2010
339p

Sex, Death, Power!

Traditionally that is what vampires are all about and thank goodness Nalini Singh is doing her best to keep that tradition alive. No wimpy schoolboy vamps chasing young girls round the schoolyard in this book which also explains why the steam was rising from it in the adult section of the library .

What it's about!

Vampire hunter Elena Deveraux knows she's the best.......but she doesn't know if she's good enough for this job. Hired by the dangerously beautiful Archangel Raphael, a being so lethal that no mortal wants his attention, only one thing is clear-failure is not an option.....evn if the task she's been set is impossible.Because this time it's not a wayward vamp she has to track. It's an archangel gone bad.

First line: "When Elena told people she was a vampire hunter, their first reaction was an inevitable gasp, followed by, " You go around sticking those sharp stakes in their evil putrid hearts?"

No, she doesn't - she sniffs them out with her supernatural vampire-smelling powers, captures them and returns them to their archangel masters.

Archangels? My perception of archangels as loving and protective beings was seriously challenged and it took me a while to accept them as something very different .........lethal and powerful controllers of both humans and vampires. But with the help of the gorgeous Raphael I managed.

Not at all my usual choice of reading but part of the fun of book blogging is that it's constantly challenging one to put aside prejudice and try something new. The downside is I have nothing to compare it with so I don't know how it measures up to others of this genre. It is the first of Nalini Singh's Guild Hunter series so I imagine that , as with all firsts in a series, there is a good deal of stagesetting and introduction of characters going on. I liked Elena - she's tough and independent if a little too agressive at times but I guess vampire hunters have to be.... and Raphael , powerful and sexy - controlling , yes, because that's what power is about.
So all I can say is.....

I liked it!............it was a quick read that was original, fun and entertaining with sex, death and power aplenty and an ending tantalising enough to tempt me to read the next in the series.

2 comments:

I read this book last year, nov. 2009, and loved it. My book cover is different, and I am thinking that I may like mine...maybe.

I thought it was original as well. The archangel twist worked for me.A blog friend did not care too much for the story because she felt there was too much blood and gore. I guess there was some graphic type scenes but they were not bad for me, nor shocking considering the world that Singh built.

Anyhow, I have not read the next book, but I want to. I just keep forgetting about it which seems to be a problem for me lately.

By the way, I came across a fabulous painting of Raphael that one of Singh's fans did. Take a look at my blog post to see it. I like it a lot, I think you may too. It is at the end of my post.